Day 247: Mel Cohen
The Veteran Who Turned Grief Into a Lifetime of Service
Some people serve their country for a few years and then move on. Others serve for a lifetime, driven by something deeper than duty—by love, by loss, by a promise that can never be broken.
Mel Cohen has been serving for more than five decades, and he’s never stopped.
A Promise Born From Loss
Mel Cohen’s story of service begins with his brother Gerald. When Gerald died in Vietnam, something shifted in Mel that would define the rest of his life. While others might have been consumed by bitterness or retreated into private grief, Mel made a different choice: he would honor his brother by serving others for the rest of his days.
That’s not rhetoric. That’s not a nice sentiment to put in a eulogy and then forget. For Mel Cohen, it became the organizing principle of his entire life.
He served his country in the U.S. Air Force. Then he came home and served his community as a Suffolk County police officer for decades. But even retirement didn’t slow him down—if anything, it freed him to do even more.
The Work Nobody Else Wants to Do
Here’s where Mel Cohen’s exceptionalism really shows: he doesn’t just serve veterans at parades and ceremonies. He goes to the hard places. The forgotten places. The places where other people don’t want to look.
He works with incarcerated veterans across New York—men and women who made mistakes, who stumbled after their service ended, who ended up behind bars when they should have gotten help. These are veterans that society has largely written off. Veterans that many people would rather forget.
Not Mel Cohen. He shows up for them. He reminds them that their service still matters. That they still matter. That someone still believes in their ability to turn things around.
Think about what that means. After a whole career in law enforcement, after decades of dealing with the criminal justice system from the other side, he could easily have said, “I’ve done enough. Someone else can handle it.” Instead, he chose to serve the population that needs it most and receives it least.
Standing With Gold Star Families
Mel also dedicates himself to Gold Star families—those who have lost loved ones in military service, just like he lost Gerald. He understands their pain in a way that only someone who has lived it can. He knows what it means to have a brother who never came home. A chair that stays empty at every holiday meal. A future that was stolen.
So he stands with them. Not just once a year at a memorial service, but consistently, persistently, showing up in the ways that matter. Because he knows that grief doesn’t follow a schedule, and the need for support doesn’t end when the funeral does.
A Life Built on Organizations That Serve
Mel’s involvement reads like a directory of veteran service organizations: Vietnam Veterans of America, Wreaths Across America, and numerous others dedicated to honoring and supporting those who served. He’s not a passive member who pays dues and shows up to an occasional meeting. He’s active, engaged, and doing the actual work that makes these organizations function.
Wreaths Across America particularly embodies what Mel is about—the commitment to remember every veteran, to make sure no grave goes undecorated, no service goes unacknowledged, no sacrifice goes unremembered. It’s the kind of organization that requires thousands of volunteers doing unglamorous work in cold weather, year after year, simply because it’s the right thing to do.
That’s Mel Cohen’s world—the world of showing up, doing the work, and doing it again next year.
The Adversity of Endless Grief
Here’s what people who haven’t lost someone in war don’t always understand: that loss never goes away. It doesn’t “get better with time” in the way we pretend it does. Mel Cohen has been living with his brother’s death for more than five decades. Every day. Every holiday. Every time he sees another young veteran struggling, another Gold Star family getting the knock on the door, another name added to a memorial wall.
He could have let that grief consume him. He could have let it make him bitter or angry or withdrawn. Instead, he transformed it into fuel for service. He took the worst thing that ever happened to him and asked: “How can I make sure something good comes from this? How can I honor Gerald’s memory? How can I help others who are facing what I faced?”
The adversity Mel Cohen faces isn’t just the grief—it’s the emotional weight of serving hurting populations. Incarcerated veterans carry trauma and regret. Gold Star families in the fresh rawness of loss. Veterans struggling with PTSD, addiction, and homelessness. Every interaction is heavy. Every story he hears is complex.
And he keeps showing up anyway. Not once in a while when it’s convenient. But consistently, for decades, because that’s what a promise to a fallen brother looks like when you really mean it.
Why This Matters
In Suffolk County, New York, and beyond, some veterans are better off because of Mel Cohen. There are incarcerated veterans who found hope when they thought there was none. There are Gold Star families who feel less alone because someone who understands showed up. There are graves with wreaths because Mel helped make it happen.
None of this makes headlines. There’s no glory in visiting prisons or sitting with grieving families. There’s no fame in the quiet, steady work of showing up year after year for people who can’t give you anything in return.
But that’s precisely what makes Mel Cohen exceptional. He doesn’t do it for recognition. He doesn’t do it for thanks. He does it because his brother Gerald deserves to be honored, and the best way to celebrate a veteran is to serve other veterans. All of them. Even—especially—the ones society would rather forget.
The Bigger Picture
Mel Cohen represents the best of what military service creates: not just the courage to fight, but the commitment to keep serving long after the uniform comes off. The understanding that some debts can never be fully repaid, so you spend your life trying anyway. The refusal to let any veteran be left behind, forgotten, or written off.
He’s now in his seventies, still active, still serving, still showing up. While others his age are enjoying retirement, Mel Cohen is visiting prisons, supporting Gold Star families, and organizing memorial ceremonies. Because that’s what a lifetime of service looks like. Because that’s what honoring your brother looks like. Because that’s what doing the right thing looks like, even when—especially when—it’s hard.
As we count down to America’s 250th birthday, Mel Cohen reminds us that exceptionalism isn’t always loud or dramatic. Sometimes it’s quiet and persistent. Sometimes it’s showing up for the people everyone else has forgotten. Sometimes it’s turning personal tragedy into decades of service to others. Sometimes it’s simply refusing to quit, no matter how heavy the weight, no matter how long the road.
Gerald Cohen gave his life in Vietnam. Mel Cohen has given his life in honor of that sacrifice. And in doing so, he’s made thousands of lives better, one veteran, one family, one prison visit at a time.
Not for medals. Not for recognition. But because it’s the right thing to do.
That’s 3 down, 247 exceptional Americans to go. The countdown continues.
#250for250
Know someone like Mel Cohen—someone who serves others in the face of loss, adversity, and grief, not for recognition but because their character and their promises demand it? Nominate them. America’s 250th birthday deserves the recognition of 250 Americans who are building the next 250 years.